Live different, live better

Good morning everyone,

Our theme for this month: “Salvation past, present, and future”

Our Bible verse for today: “To the church of God in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus and called to be holy … 1 Corinthians 1:2 (NIV)

Our thought for today: “Live different, live better”

Your state of being saved began in the moment you placed your faith in Jesus for the forgiveness of your sins. If you have had such a moment, then it is a settled fact – a past reality. Although that decision may have taken a long time to arrive at, the actual moment of salvation and the consequent new birth happened in a moment, in a flash, and it is now an accomplished fact.

That brings us to the present. Your present state is that you are saved. In other words, you have been saved, you are saved, and you will continue to be saved. This present state is also where you live-out what is already true of you. In 2 Corinthians 5:17 the Apostle Paul wrote about the new birth, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” Now that you are a new creation you should live your life in a new way. What has happened inside of you should result in a change in how you live.

However, the change is not instantaneous. Salvation is instantaneous. It does happen in a flash. But the changed life occurs slowly and progressively over a lifetime. This is the part of salvation known as “sanctification.” Sanctification is a fifty-cent theological word that simply means “To make holy. To dedicate, consecrate, and set-apart for a divine purpose.”

That’s you. Now that you belong to Christ you have been set-apart, dedicated, and consecrated for His divine purposes and you are in the process of being transformed from the person you were into someone who is holy and who reflects the attributes of Christ. That’s what Paul was referring to in 1 Corinthians 1:2 (above) when he reminded the Corinthians (and us) that as Christians we have been called to live holy lives.

Your salvation will be perfected and complete in eternity. But between the moment of forgiveness when you placed your faith in Christ, and your eventual perfection in heaven when you will be the person you will be for all eternity, there is this long process of transformation as you progressively become more and more like Jesus. That is the life of a Christian and it is what should be happening because you are saved.

We are called by Christ to live differently and to live better than we would if we had not been saved. We will think more about this in the days to come.

God bless,
Pastor Jim

(If you like what you are reading in these daily devotionals, and if you would like more content from Oak Hill Baptist Church, join us on Sundays at 10:00, in-person if you are nearby or, if you are geographically distant or if you just can’t make it, online at www.YouTube.com/@oakhillbaptistcrossville

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